GE Healthcare Opens First Plant in Brazil

CEO Jeff Immelt recently announced that the location of the next Global Research Centre (GRC) will be in Brazil, one of four focus countries in GE's globalisation process, which also includes Russia, India and China. Brazil and South America are of critical importance to GE Healthcare's future.
For the last several years GE Healthcare has envisioned and laid the groundwork to establish a manufacturing facility to serve both the local market of Brazil and eventually all of Latin America. According to Claudia Goulart, President and CEO of GE Healthcare for Latin America, "This plant allows us to align ourselves with our commitment to Brazil, to the Latin America region and to the healthcare market in general."
The new plant, located in Contagem, Brazil, just outside of Belo Horizonte, represents a 50 million dollar investment over the next 10 years and is expected to bring over 700 jobs to the region through new employees, additional indirect resources (i.e., suppliers), distributors and new service personnel. This is a great example of a project that is not only good for GE, but also one that supports the local region with new employment opportunities.
The Brazil plant was established with a focus around "healthymagination". In the future, the plant will expand manufacturing to include PET, CT, MRI and monitoring systems.The Brazilian healthcare market is currently worth 600 million dollars, and the entire Latin America region is worth two billion dollars. Both markets are growing at a rate of eight percent a year.